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HEALING 13 by Bruce MacManaway

Bruce MacManaway
Healing

Bruce MacManaway

13. Conclusion: The Soul

Those who turned to this book in the expectation of finding a cut-and-dried explanation for the existence of some healing capacity in man are bound to be disappointed. As a sop to the rational man who finds talk of extended awareness (not to mention discarnate existence) both distasteful and unsettling, may I stress yet again that healing works, regardless of belief and that at least some aspects of this phenomenon are coming within the grasp of science.

Biofeedback, the work with trypsin and probably Kirlian photography show that purported healing has measurable correlates. This, however, is not and never will be the whole story. Healing is only one aspect of human potential which Western man, for reasons of mental conditioning, is reluctant to look at. He is like one of the inhabitants of Plato’s cave, an allegory in The Republic which is perhaps worth quoting, [1] even for the many who know it already.

‘Let me show in allegory how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened. Imagine human beings living in an underground cave, which has a mouth open toward the light and reaching all along the cave. Here they have been from childhood. They have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move and can only see the wall of the cave before them, being prevented by the chains from turning their heads. Above and behind them at a distance the fire of the sun is blazing and between the sun and the prisoners there is a raised way and a low wall built along the way. And do you see men passing along the way carrying all sorts of vessels and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials which appear as shadows on the wall of the cave facing the prisoners? Some of them are talking, others silent.’

‘You have shown me a strange image and they are strange prisoners’, Glaucon replies.

‘Like ourselves, and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows which the sun throws on the opposite wall of the cave, of the men and the objects which are being carried. If they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were seeing as realities what was before them? And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side. Would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow? To them the truth would be literally but the shadows of images.

‘At first, when any one of the prisoners is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn around and walk and look towards the light he will suffer sharp pain and he will be unable to see the reality of which in his former state he had seen the shadow. Conceive of someone saying to him that what he saw before was an illusion. Would he not be perplexed? Would he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him? If he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away? He will take refuge in the shadows which he can see and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?

‘He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. Last of all, he will be able to see the sun. He will then proceed to argue that the sun is he who gives the seasons and the years and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold.

‘When he remembered his old habitation and the wisdom of the cave and his fellow prisoners, do you suppose that he would congratulate himself on the change and pity them? Imagine once more such an individual coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation. Would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?

‘If there were contests and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the cave, while his sight was still weak, would he not seem ridiculous? They would say of him, “Up he went and down he came without his eyes”, and that it would be better not even to think of ascending. If anyone tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender and they would put him to death.’

I hope I am not labouring the point if I elaborate Plato’s analogy for my own purposes. Science and technology have already placed man, at least intellectually, a little closer to the entrance of the cave, in a new environment which is pure energy moving in swift and ever-changing patterns of frequency. His concepts of his world built on the experience of a limited use of five senses is no longer adequate and, in many cases, no longer valid.

Let us assume that by ‘extending our awareness’ we are like an inhabitant of the cave who comes back and demonstrates that he can play football or stand on his head. His fellows will find this ‘unnatural’. I would maintain that much that is currently considered ‘unnatural’, be it healing, clairvoyance, telepathy, levitation, mediumship, the ability such as that of Uri Geller to move or affect objects without touching them, or any of the phenomena described consistently throughout the millennia are similarly not ‘unnatural’, they are simply latent capabilities awaiting rediscovery.

Those who return to the cave and talk about or demonstrate their new-found discoveries may well call them different things. The amount they have learnt will vary, and the use they make of their discoveries is equally a matter of choice. Thus we have arguments over terminology, though the phenomena themselves are unchanging. ‘Psychic’ and ‘medium’ are now almost dirty words to some people, but synonyms are becoming acceptable. ‘Parapsychology’ is almost respectable. Shafica Karagulla [2] came to the conclusion after much research that many people demonstrate ‘higher sense perception’, in which she includes clairvoyant diagnosis, the ability to see and affect energy fields and telepathic assistance. Her research is fascinating and we can, I hope, look forward to additional enlightenment from the Higher Sense Perception Research Foundation in Beverley Hills. Karagulla differentiates between the ways people use their abilities, but the abilities themselves, whether they be called ‘higher sense perception’, ‘extra sensory perception’, ‘psychic’ or anything else remain identical. As already mentioned, I myself prefer the term ‘extended sensory perception’.

Some may return to the cave having mastered only a little of a skill and with a very poor understanding of what they have seen. They can do party tricks which are of no particular use to anyone except at a sensational level of entertainment. Their explanations can be misleading. Some may have attained a greater understanding but few if any will comprehend the full complexity of the outside world they have visited. They cannot become versed in physics, biology, biochemistry and all the other spheres of knowledge let alone in the arts all at once. At the moment, we have good reason to mistrust those who claim to have a monopoly of the truth, and to be particularly suspicious of those who have not visited the outside world or at least paid only fleeting visits and yet set up dogmatic institutions claiming to be the only authority on the subject. No amount of teaching by those who have ventured out of the cave, no matter how enlightened, coherent and undogmatic they may be, can take the place of personal experience.

Plato assumed that our allegorical cave dweller comes straight out of the gloom into brilliant, blinding sunlight. He assumes that he will quickly realise that the sun is ‘…..in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold’. The idea of power, of energy preceding and permeating all life in our universe is not new. Light has always been the symbol of greater understanding, of ‘enlightenment’. There are many who observe the power of the sun without experiencing a qualitative change in their understanding or consciousness. Many others, however, try to describe in their different ways their individual experience of being part of a greater, enlightened cosmic consciousness. Their experiences are variously described as religious, transcendental and spiritual. William James [3] and more recently Alister Hardy [4] have studied these ‘subjective’ experiences with considerable erudition. They analyse profound similarities in the types of experience and James concludes that ‘… . so long as we deal with the cosmic and general, we deal only with the symbols of reality, but as soon as we deal with private and personal phenomena as such we deal with realities in the completest sense of the term’. This is to insist that in such studies there is no possibility of eliminating a subjective component. Should it be thought that a subjective component invalidates the studies, it should be remembered that even the physicists now conclude that no experiment in the subatomic field can be totally objective as the observer is always automatically involved in an essential way.

Many others describe experiences similar to the visionaries and the yogis through the use of drugs. There is often the fear of the mysterium tremens (the blinding sunlight?) and the feeling of losing the ‘self’ and entering a transcendental world. With these qualitative changes of consciousness comes an ethical conception, or perhaps a ‘spiritual’ perception which goes beyond ethics. Koestler [5] may say a little drily that’… the need for self-transcendence through some form of “peak experience” ‘…is inherent in man’s condition…’ and that ‘…transcendental beliefs are derived from certain ever-recurrent archetypal patterns which evoke instant emotive responses…’, but he is observing both a need and a reality. The result is the ever-recurring theme that man aspires to union with a spiritual force and that only when he recognises this can he live to the full. Aldous Huxley [6] put it another way:

the quietists may not practise contemplation in its fullness, but if they practise it at all, they may bring back enlightened reports of another, a transcendent country of the mind; and if they practise it in the height, they will become conduits through which some beneficent influence can flow out of that other country into a world of darkened selves, chronically dying for lack of it.

Here we have the view that some ‘beneficent influence’ can flow through man to his fellow humans. This ‘beneficent influence’ can be seen both as ‘enlightenment’, and also some more concrete ‘stuff’ with power to affect the material world. This has always been the religions’ point about prayer. Frederic W. H. Myers, in a letter to a friend quoted by William James, [3] is explicit.

I am glad that you have asked me about prayer, because I have rather strong ideas on the subject. First consider the facts. There exists around us a spiritual universe and that universe is in actual relation with the material. From the spiritual universe comes the energy which maintains the material; the energy which makes the life of each individual spirit…

Plainly we must endeavour to draw in as much spiritual life as possible, and we must place our minds in any attitude which experience shows favourable to such indrawal. Prayer is the general name for that attitude of open and earnest expectancy. If we then ask to whom we pray, the answer (strangely enough) must be that that does not much matter. The prayer is not indeed a purely subjective thing, it means a real increase in intensity of absorption of spiritual power or grace but we do not know enough of what takes place in the spiritual world to know how that prayer operates.

The point he makes is that in prayer (and, in my view, potentially in any of the other means of extending awareness) spiritual energy, which otherwise would slumber, does become active and spiritual work of some kind is effected in the physical world.

It is important that in Myer’s words the spiritual world ‘is in actual relation to the material’ and in some aspects presumably permeates physical forces. In other words, we can observe and measure these physical forces without considering the spiritual power which permeates them. In relation to healing, some facets may be scientifically measurable, but in my view are dependent upon the spiritual order whether this is recognised or not. If I may hark back once more to Plato’s troglodytes, it is quite possible that an individual could come out of the cave on a day when the sun was hidden behind the clouds. He could go back and recount what he had seen and show what he had learnt, but he would not realise that there was any ‘guardian of all that is in the visible world’ or ‘a cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold’.

It is important to distinguish between the sun’s energy and power and its blinding light. Power is of itself neutral, it is. We can harness it, whatever classification of energy it may be, to heal or harm. It is our motivation and state of understanding or enlightenment which determine the use to which we put it. We may even put it to beneficial use with little or no real spiritual aspiration. The Master, Jesus, pointed out the distinction between power and spiritual enlightenment when he talked of ‘false Christs’. Such men would be able to harness power, to perform ‘miracles’. From the point of view of those who received help and healing this would be a very good thing, but from the point of view of pointing out man’s real goal authoritatively and helping him to spiritual advancement, their teaching would be misleading. The Tibetans recognise a similar distinction. They consider the attainment of ‘psychic’ power as well within the capacity of man and extremely beneficial if used properly. They stress that such attainment is not an end in itself as it should lead to spiritual growth. If it does become an end in itself then it can constitute a distraction from the true path.

Much that man is currently studying leads to some inkling of a spiritual world. Scientists in various fields and psychologists frequently find their work leading them into unexpected dimensions. The Wrekin Trust, now runs an annual conference entitled ‘Mystics and Scientists’, two groups who for years have been thought totally opposed and now find themselves grappling with similar experiences. The 1982 conference included the eminent neurophysiologist and Nobel prize winner Sir John Eccles FRS, who argues not only that mind has an existence independent of the brain but also that human evolution is not a series of fortuitous accidents and that we are creatures with some supernatural meaning! Dr Lawrence Le Shan [8] is another who points out the underlying similarities of understanding between widely divergent disciplines in his book Clairvoyant Reality.

The spiritual renaissance, as we could call it, gains additional momentum from the re-emergence not only of religious practices but of physical disciplines originating in the East. Many people, perturbed by the physiological effects of sedentary urban life take up ‘exercise classes’. The physiological effects of yoga, T’ai Chi and a multitude of other disciplines are undoubtedly extremely helpful, but once again the student, whether he intended it or not, is lead towards a recognition of spiritual reality. Man is body, mind and spirit and he can operate in wholeness, in an integration of all his potential. This way lies the only fully effective path to freedom from ‘dis-ease’. You may regard soul and spirit as aspects of mind or as separate entities in themselves. Some schools of thought consider soul and spirit as the same thing, others distinguish between them and create further sub-divisions. The distinctions do not matter very much at this point. The important thing is to recognise the broad dimensions of man and the interplay between them. By changing one we may change another. The work with biofeedback instruments is only one of the many areas of research which are showing the physiological reality of the effect of mind. The very acceptance of psychiatry, psychology and psychotherapy shows that orthodox medicine is already at least recognising that mechanical failure in the body cannot be totally divorced from emotional and mental well-being. There are many others who claim that the search for true health, be it of individuals or of society, is tied up with the search for the soul.

We desperately need all the medical skills available today and healing should not be seen as a substitute. It is essentially complementary. While some research (with, I hope, very much more to follow) corroborates that healing which recognises mind and spirit can help at a physiological level, it is perhaps the concept of wholeness that is most important. We lost sight of wholeness many centuries ago when religion and medicine separated. The entire well-being of man used to be embraced within the temple, but we lost this integration when certain types of knowledge came to be seen as secular and scientific and were approached separately. It would seem that untiring research in all aspects of knowledge is leading towards a dawning recognition that the old concepts of wholeness are a reality.

I believe that we can approach wholeness from any angle. The vicious circle of illness, unhappiness, strain, dissatisfaction, unrest and all the malaise of modern man can be broken at innumerable points and for this we need all the specialist skills that are available. Whilst in many cases the easiest place to start is the relief of physical symptoms, we must keep in sight the vision of man in his entirety. I would question his order of priorities, but Plato [1] expressed the necessity of a coordinated approach towards the whole person when he said:

The cure of the part should not be attempted without treatment of the whole. No attempt should be made to cure the body without the soul, and, if the head and body are to be healthy, you must begin by curing the mind. That is the first thing. Let no-one persuade you to cure the body until he has first given you his soul to be cured. For this is the great error of our day in the treatment of the human body, that physicians first separate the soul from the body.

Notes

1. Plato. The Republic. Pan Books, 1981.
2. Karagulla, Shafica. Breakthrough to Creativity. De Vorss, 1967.
3. James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience. The Gifford Lectures, delivered at Edinburgh 1901-2. First issued in the Fontana Library, 1960.
4. Hardy, Sir Alister. The Spiritual Nature of Man. Oxford University Press, 1979.
5. Koestler, Arthur. The Ghost in the Machine. Hutchinson, 1976.
6. Huxley, Aldous. The Doors of Perception. Panther, 1977.
7. Eccles, Sir John Carew. ‘The Human Mystery’. Gifford Lectures, 1977-78. Springer International, 1979.
8. Le Shan, Dr Lawrence. Clairvoyant Reality. Turnstone Press, 1980.

End

Healing

A straightforward look into
all aspects of the healing phenomenon

Bruce MacManaway

© Bruce MacManaway, 1983. This book may be quoted from and printed out in single copies only for personal use and study, without permission.
For publication on websites or for printing in larger quantities or for commercial gain please e-mail Patrick MacManaway for permission.

HEALING 12 by Bruce MacManaway

Bruce MacManaway
Healing

Bruce MacManaway

12. Healing Today

A recent survey of ‘complementary medicine’ reckons that there are over 20,000 healers practising in the UK [1983]. Given such a choice and given also the multitude of beliefs held and methods used, it is hardly surprising that anyone seeking help should feel a little bewildered. A dowser competent in this area can tell an individual which therapies are likely to be most helpful to him or her, but it is impossible to give any general guidelines. The only answer is to do a little personal research and find out which therapies and which individuals you find helpful.

For the individual is very important; you may go to a very competent and successful healer with no results, and yet respond to another. Even Harry Edwards, whom I would regard as the most outstanding healer of his day, would on occasion recognise that he was not the best person to give help, and that a particular patient would respond better to healing through another person or group, and he would refer the patient accordingly. It would seem that, in some instances, patient and healer cannot for some reason ‘tune in’ properly. We can observe a similar occurrence with hi-fi equipment; you can have an excellent amplifier, superb turntable and all the rest, but if the mix is wrong, you will not get good musical reproduction.

Standards

Given the diversity of healers and this dependence on the individual reaction, it is very difficult to asses who is a ‘good’ healer and who is a ‘bad’ one. This leaves the field open to delusion and even abuse. People are particularly vulnerable when they are ill, and in their desire to get well, can become very gullible. There are and always have been those who will cash in on this human weakness. There is no easy answer to this, and to say that there are, always have been and probably always will be charlatans in the healing field as in every other field is not a good reason for ignoring the field itself. The difficulty is in distinguishing the good from the bad, the self-deluded and incompetent from the genuinely effective. In fields such as medicine and the law, we have on the whole managed to minimise abuses by setting up high standards of examination and strict codes with an established body to monitor conduct and complaints. It would make life very much easier if we could do the same in the healing field.

There is the obvious need for society to be protected from the antics of dangerous individuals, but there is also the need for the individual to be protected from domination by any particular group, be it political, commercial, religious or anything else. We have to keep the balance always in view so that, at one extreme, abuses are minimised and at the other that a monopoly does not impede the growth of new ideas. Standards and codes are extremely useful, but it is vital to recognise that they must change from time to time in the light of changing circumstances or new discoveries.

We are extremely fortunate in Britain in that medical codes now leave the door open for doctors to liaise with healers, but we are still left with the problem of assessing healers. It would be convenient if we had some measurable standard by which to judge them. At this point I think it is important to distinguish between the many therapies that are used as adjuncts to healing, and the simple acts of laying on hands and absent healing. It would be possible and perhaps desirable to set up standards of practice for some therapies (such as massage), though we have to be on the alert to incorporate improvements. Until we can establish a relevant yardstick it would be extremely difficult, and not necessarily desirable, to setup standards for simple healing. While it is undoubtedly useful for healers to have a basic knowledge of anatomy, it is not by any means essential, and to insist upon learnt knowledge when assessing an intuitive gift is not necessarily relevant or satisfactory. If academic examinations became a prerequisite for healers, a great deal of valuable assistance would be outlawed. (Incidentally, I have heard doubts expressed, even in medical circles, about the increasing dependence on academic qualifications. The medical schools are naturally tempted to choose the most academically brilliant students, who qualify with distinction, but unless they have that ‘extra something’ which you might call a genuine vocation, they do not necessarily make good doctors.)

Some criteria other than academic also cause me concern. Healing works regardless of the belief system of practitioner or patient, and any attempt to set up codes of practice might bring with it a tendency to encourage one set of beliefs rather than another, and to establish a new closed shop.

The National Federation of Spiritual Healers continually wrestles with the problem of standards, but so far has found it impossible to do anything but establish very basic criteria for membership, involving the subjective testimony of a small number of supposedly successful patients. It would be much more satisfactory if the medical profession could be persuaded to extend their current tolerance to active co operation in arranging more ‘before and after studies’ of patients. Perhaps biofeedback tests could be helpful in assessing whether a healer is in fact capable of tuning in to the brain wave pattern which seems to be associated with healing and called by Cade ‘state five’. As long as there are no established standards, it is unfortunately up to individuals to keep their critical faculties intact and evaluate whether they or others they know have been helped or not.

The Law

We are extremely fortunate in Britain in that the law allows practitioners of ‘alternative’ medicine considerable freedom. There are laws quite rightly preventing healers from poaching on the preserves of the medical profession in certain areas as, for example, in the prescription of drugs, where expert knowledge is essential. By and large, however, healers are allowed to operate as they wish, and it is up to individual doctors to liaise with them if they wish to. We are seeing a gradual change of attitude, and I devoutly hope that the co-operation and trust between healers and doctors will grow.

The legal situation is very different in other countries. At one extreme, Brazil accepts healing as a useful branch of medicine and healers are an integrated part of many hospitals. A recent government-appointed commission [2] in Holland recommends that the Dutch Government should go the same way so that healing would be available within the official health service and insurance schemes. Germany gives healers the opportunity to join the ranks of the establishment by offering a lay qualification. The academic standard is quite high, I am told, so that a number of effective healers (who are not necessarily great brains) are excluded. The other European countries are, at least officially, less in sympathy with healing and there is always the worry that EEC attempts to standardise the position will result in the triumph of a less tolerant attitude. Questions recently raised at the European Parliament about tightening up the law on various aspects of alternative medicine received an evasive answer, however, and it would seem that, at least for the moment, the legislators have no wish to stir up a hornet’s nest. Meanwhile, we must hope that doctors and healers will work together more closely in Britain and that further research will help to establish a more comprehensive rationale with which to combat any intolerant legislation.

Healing appears to be growing and attracting more and more interest in the USA, despite the law, which in certain States is so strict that it is illegal for a lay healer even to touch his patient. Despite official restrictions on practice, theory is receiving greater attention than it is in Europe, and American research seems likely to shed increasing light on healing and on all other branches of the supposedly paranormal.

Payment

Wherever healers may choose to practise they are usually confronted with the question of whether they should charge for their services or not. Obviously there have been (and probably always will be) some who cash in on the vulnerability of people desperate to get well. Leaving aside the deliberate frauds, there are many who feel that it is wrong to charge money for exercising a God-given gift. Yet, by this argument, all our gifts are God-given and a musician, an artist, or a businessman using his numerate ability, all patently have to earn their living by using their respective talents. The difficulty lies in the absence of any observable standards of healing. A musician or an artist can be judged on aesthetic or technical grounds and will only earn a living if he satisfies the criteria of his public. I feel that anyone believing that he or she is a healer should be careful about charging anyone to begin with. Only if he satisfies himself (and his patients!) that he really can help others, should he consider charging. I practised healing in my spare time for nearly twenty years and never charged during that time. But then I did not need to: I had my army pay, and for most of that time I was a bachelor. By the time I left the army I had my wife, Patricia, to consider. She encouraged me in my determination to continue with healing and to this end we bought our little house in Fife. It did not seem sensible to me to give up all other forms of support, so to begin with healing remained a spare-time activity; and to feed us and the first of our three sons who appeared in 1959 I had my small army pension and a job as a pigman on a nearby large farm. More and more people began to come for healing; however, the numbers became more than I could cope with in my spare time. It was at this point that we decided that I should devote all my time to healing and that in this case I should have to charge my patients. I have done so ever since and feel that, provided a healer has honestly satisfied himself (or herself) that he really can help others, then it is fair to earn a living from his endeavours.

The Way Ahead

Our world is changing fast and it is to be hoped that governments and individuals will continue honestly to try and assess the work of various intuitive forms of knowledge and abilities which we have ignored for too long. The development of increasingly sophisticated scientific instruments is showing that many aspects can already be seen as natural rather than supernatural. As Koestler says, ‘….the odour of the alchemist’s kitchen is replaced by the smell of quark in the laboratory’. [3] There is increasing interest in the supposedly paranormal and this goes both for observed phenomena such as healing and for the age-old contention of the world religions that we can experience a benevolent, non-physical power which appears to be partly or wholly beyond and far greater than the individual self.

Notes

1. Fulder. Stephen and Monro, Robin. The Status of Complementary Medicine in the United Kingdom. Threshold Foundation, 1981.
2. ‘Alternative Medicine in the Netherlands’. Summary of the Report of the Commission for Alternative Systems of Medicine. The Hague, 1981.
3. Koestler, Arthur. The Roots of Coincidence. Pan Books, 1976.

Healing

A straightforward look into
all aspects of the healing phenomenon

Bruce MacManaway

HEALING 11 by Bruce MacManaway

Bruce MacManaway
Healing

Bruce MacManaway

11. Environmental Factors
in Health and Healing

Whatever you like doing, and especially whatever you like eating or drinking, there is bound to be someone who will tell you it is bad for you. Before I go any further, I would like to stress that I am not advocating that we radically change our ways of life overnight, opt out of the stresses of modern society, ignore modern technology and turn into fasting ascetics. Man is incredibly resilient, both in body and mind, but he is perpetually bombarded by factors within his environment which are potentially damaging. Some he may shrug off (though another individual may be unable to do so), others he succumbs to. The difficulty is recognising the particular factor that is harming an individual. This has now become one of the permanent specialities at our Centre where, by asking questions and dowsing, we are able to identify the trouble makers.

Some people can smoke all their lives without any noticeable ill effects. Should you contract lung cancer, however, you are probably not helping medical treatment if you continue to smoke sixty cigarettes a day and you cannot blame the doctors if treatment is not successful. We have to take some responsibility, both as individuals and as a society, for our health. This means being aware of the potential dangers, whether they be self-induced (smoking, overeating, overwork, etc.) or part of the external environment, widespread pollution being probably the most obvious factor. This includes everything from the recognised dangers of the lead content of petrol or radioactive fallout to the more controversial side effects of much technological progress. It also means being aware of yourself, of your own psyche and your own ‘soma’ (body). It means listening to any warnings that your own particular system is running into trouble – and doing something about it. You cannot expect a doctor, therapist or a healer to put you right permanently if you go straight back and repeat whatever it was that made you ill in the first place or, more subtly, if you deny all responsibility for your own illness. It is arguably bad luck that you caught mumps, but are you running your life in such a way that you are not giving your immune system a chance and are therefore a sitting duck for any passing bug?

Positive and Negative Aspects of the Environment

We are used to being told that environmental factors are bad for us and I am about to argue that we need to be even more aware of how we can be affected by them. A greater recognition of the fact that our environment can affect us also raises the possibility that some aspects can have a very beneficial effect. If we take sunlight as a very obvious example, its effect on man can be both good and bad. A holiday in the sun can help us relax, revitalise us, and send us back to normal life in the British climate feeling a new person. But over-exposure to sun (and what constitutes ‘over-exposure’ varies from one person to the next) can cause sunburn, sunstroke and, according to some authorities, skin cancer. We need to be aware of the possible effects and discover our individual response. We also need to concentrate on the beneficial effects which can be an aid to healing and minimise the potentially damaging ones.

Radiation

Whether we like it or not, we are inevitably exposed to a multitude of energy frequencies or what I call, in a very general unscientific way, radiation. Technological progress has multiplied the problems of radiation and we are already aware that while some forms, such as X-ray, radar and ultra-violet, have their uses, over-exposure to them is not desirable. Many other forms, both those which occur naturally and those which are generated by technology, are not adequately recognised.

Electric and Electromagnetic Fields

Take the national electrical grid system as an example. Many thousands of miles of high-voltage cable cross our homes, gardens, work and leisure areas. It is well known that high-voltage transmission lines can cause electrical break-down of the air in the immediate vicinity of the wires via a process known as ‘corona’. This is not considered particularly serious, though it is noisy and produces ozone, a highly reactive and toxic gas which, in sufficient concentration, is harmful to animals and plants. [1] More controversial are the electric and electromagnetic fields which the wires create. [2] Since the late 1960s a great deal of research has been done, particularly as the Russians reported that workers in electrical sub-stations were suffering various ill effects, including cardio-vascular and neurological disorders, and the electrical fields were thought to be responsible. Numerous scientists claim that electric and electromagnetic fields affect living organisms by altering behaviour, physiology, or both.

This can include the speeding up or slowing down of responses, the development of tumours, or stunted growth. The research related to a projected submarine communications system in the United States called Project Sanguine is particularly interesting and ominous. The operating characteristics of Sanguine were similar to high-voltage transmission lines, but were about one million times weaker – and were still shown to have biological effects.

The Central Electricity Generating Board claims [3] that we have nothing to worry about. Apparently the Russians now say that they overstated the dangers and it is claimed that much of the research both on humans and animals which gave rise to concern had been deficient in some respect of scientific procedure. The general conclusions to be drawn from the evidence are, according to the Central Electricity Generating Board, reassuring, notwithstanding the odd suggestion that various health effects may occur. These suggestions include a possible connection between electric or electromagnetic fields and congenital deformity, childhood cancer, infant death and suicide!

Other scientists, notably Marino and Becker come up with very different conclusions from the same evidence. [4] Admittedly, much of the really alarming research, whereby exposure results in death or development of tumours in animals, involves electric fields much higher that those to which we are subjected by high-voltage transmission lines. The experts cannot agree whether long-term exposure to relatively low level fields might be potentially as damaging as short term exposure to high-level fields. In the absence of scientific consensus it would at least seem sensible to err on the side of caution when planning new lines.

We all take electrical appliances for granted and it has been rightly pointed out that we accept many risks in our daily lives in order to enjoy the advantages that advancing technology has bestowed. The trouble is that we do not always realise the possible extent of the risks we run. I have mentioned the controversy about high-voltage transmission lines as much as anything else to show that even with something as well-established as electricity we do not know all the answers, and the experts are very far from unanimous.

There are numerous other side effects of domestic technical developments which are receiving insufficient recognition. Microwave ovens, [5] for example, can lead to mutations at a congenital level and can kill directly through organic damage if the shielding mechanisms are inadequate. Even television is potentially dangerous, especially a coloured set, if someone is exposed to it for too long, as one of the rays is horribly similar to X-ray which is already known to be damaging in large quantities. Less well known are the effects of inaudible vibration above and below the sonic range in some types of machinery. I was present when an engineer was rescued in the nick of time from his control room. He was rushed to hospital and it was found that the muscles in his chest had been beaten up so that they no longer worked properly and he could hardly breathe. This was finally thought to be the result of the vibrations from the experimental jet engine they were using. In this case, it was a combination of circumstances that prompted the damage. The rest of us on deck were not affected but the vibrations in the enclosed engine-room were nearly disastrous.

Countering Adverse Radiation

My children would revolt if I banned television and I am not suggesting that we abandon technology. It must make sense, however, to be aware of the potential dangers and take precautions to shield ourselves from them. As a non-scientist I am aware of some of, if not all, the dangers. Though I have no scientific rationale I have found that I can frequently offset troublesome emanations by placing patterns or strips of metal in the path of the energy, but this whole field merits far more research.

The Case for Empirical Assessment of Radiation

We do not understand the mechanism by which radiation affects us. This is still the case with electric and electromagnetic fields as whatever molecular mechanisms may ultimately be uncovered, it is apparent that the observed effects are not energetically driven by the applied field. In other words, the fields affect us in a roundabout way which nobody quite understands. Marino and Becker suggest that the role of the field is to perturb or trigger the biological field, thereby causing it to change. Others think that the effects are brought about by ionisation, one of the effects of the break-down of the air. Whatever the mechanism involved, the results are observable and they are not all bad. Some of the research has opened up the possibility that carefully controlled exposure may produce beneficial effects. Marino and Becker quote experiments by Bassett, [4] for example, who found that extremely low-frequency fields increased the rate of fracture-healing in dogs and they conclude that human exposure to such fields under proper medical supervision, may be of considerable benefit to mankind.

The lack of comprehensive understanding of even electricity encourages me to think that I may not be immediately laughed down if I put forward the hypothesis that other forms of radiation affect us for good or ill. The evidence for electrical fields is circumstantial in that we do not understand the mechanism, though at least we can measure the postulated agent. I maintain (and once again I am not alone) that other radiation affects us and can circumstantially be shown to do so, though the proof of the theory is made extremely difficult by the fact that we cannot scientifically measure the radiation supposedly involved.

Places that Make us Comfortable or Otherwise and Earth Radiation

We all know places that make us feel relaxed, happy and secure – or the reverse. This can be partly because the place is familiar, or because we are surrounded by people we like. It can be partly explained by individual tastes. Some like the bustle of cities and feel lonely in the country. Others feel at home near mountains, or the seashore or the desert. But there is more to it than familiarity or personal taste. Some places can make us feel particularly good or very uneasy for no obvious reasons. In many cases, I would suggest that this is a response to radiation from the earth.

We know that energy reaches us not only from the sun but from an infinite number of sources, including such strange entities as quasars. The earth itself radiates energy and it does so more strongly in certain areas. Earth radiation can be either beneficial or detrimental to life and some people are particularly sensitive to it. Animals and plant life are of course also affected. Watch any group of animals and you will see that they habitually pick the same path from one end of the field to another, though it is frequently not the most direct or sheltered route. Many farmers and keepers of livestock will tell you that if animals are allowed a wide range of territory they all avoid certain areas and congregate in others for no apparent reasons such as shelter or better grazing.

Ley Lines and Earth Radiations

Earth energies can either well straight up out of the ground and affect the area surrounding the spot where they surface or they can flow like rivers, criss-crossing each other at intervals6. Nowadays we tend to call these streams of energy ‘ley lines’, but their existence has been known of for thousands of years. The Chinese called them ‘dragon lines’ and would never consider putting up any building for human habitation without first consulting those who were skilled in assessing the power for good or ill of the site. Even recently, a Chinese versed in the old knowledge told me that Western man must be considered mad to build wherever there was a space without any regard to the possible harm that could emanate from the spot.

As usual, the Chinese are not alone and evidence of this knowledge is found in every culture throughout the world. Ancient temples, shrines (later to be followed by churches) oracles, places of healing and teaching, as well as dwelling places for people and animals were built where strongly beneficial streams of energy crossed each other. As so often in Europe, the vestiges of the old tradition lived on in an outdated official title long after the knowledge had been corrupted or lost. Geomancy (the sacred knowledge of the layout of the landscape) was the old art and every court had its geomancer. The Court geomancer remained an official post long after geomancy had deteriorated into garbled hocus-pocus, defined in many an encyclopaedia as divination or even sorcery.

You may ask why ley lines are brought into a book about healing. This to me is like asking what part hygiene and sanitary housing have to play in medicine. The radiation from beneficial (so-called ‘white’) ley lines can give a pronounced boost to those who live within their influence. Detrimental (‘black’) lines can be a very strong factor in encouraging discord and illness, ranging from emotional disorder to pathological disease although probably only the latter would be recorded.

Some people are sensitive enough to feel accurately where ley lines run, but otherwise they can be traced by dowsing.7 A group of dowsers decided to conduct some research with the help of doctors into the reality of the adverse effects of black ley lines. They wanted a contained area which would also have medical records stretching back as far as possible. They therefore chose a small British island where there had always been the tradition of so-called ‘cancer houses’ associated not necessarily with cancer but with severe illness. The dowsers traced a number of ley lines, including some strong black ones, and submitted their findings to those who had access to the medical records. Every house under which the black lines ran had a history of chronic illness and an unusually large number of cancer victims among its residents as far back as records could be studied.

Faced with this potential danger, I pay a great deal of attention to ley lines. A doctor treating someone with bronchitis would probably be concerned if the patient lived in a damp room and would recommend him to remedy the damp or move if at all possible. In the same way, I would find out if any adverse lines run underneath the patient’s house or place of work and would offer to correct the quality of energy flow. It would seem that ley lines are subject to physical laws as it is possible to turn a black line white by a number of methods. White lines can be turned black be mining or other geological disturbance.

While I and others like me are employed to correct energy patterns at an individual level, this activity is on a very small scale and there is an enormous national and even international need to research the problem, particularly in view of the terrible disruptive effects of the major disturbances we have inflicted on the earth in the last few centuries. Think of the effects of building our enormous hospitals, schools and churches on powerfully negative sites. In the same way that many people live in a damp house with no ill effects, some will be unaffected by black lines, but this is no reason to ignore the problem, imperilling those who are susceptible.

Colour, Shape, Sound and Movement

Part of the power of particular places may be because, subjectively, we like or dislike them. They put us in a particular mood. Mood or state of mind has been shown in the biofeedback experiments to have physiological effects. Mood can, in turn, be affected by a number of things from medical or hallucinatory drugs (be they stimulating or relaxing) to places, people, colour, form, sound and a multitude of other stimuli.

I claim that places have a force of their own, independent of the subjective likes or dislikes of the individual, and the same appears to be true of colour, shape, sound and form. In the 1930s, Ghadiali propounded the theory that colours represent chemical potencies in higher octaves of vibration, and that every organ and system can be stimulated or inhibited by the correct application of a specific colour. Undoubtedly, certain colours can stimulate or sedate an individual and many such as Steiner have developed this recognition to a very effective science. Theo Gimbel [8] is one of those who is currently applying the knowledge that both the colour and the shape of the rooms in which we live can affect us. He found that by rounding all the corners in a room he could bring enormous relief to people suffering from certain emotional or psychological disturbances. Those who design homes and offices have no idea of the powerful effect of their creations! The power of architectural design was known in the past and is gradually gaining recognition once more. At a sensational level, the shape of the pyramid of Cheops has proved to have extraordinary power. A small but exact replica can reproduce this, as if you place a blunt razor blade in it overnight, it will be sharp and clean in the morning. [9]

The pyramids appear to have a certain power which tentatively could be attributed to shape. It has been established that in certain points in the pyramid, milk and meat will remain fresh for years. Whatever the explanation, the pyramids present problems to the scientists. In 1968, Einshams University in Cairo set up a very expensive project to excavate the pyramid of Chephren at Giza to try and find secret chambers. Computers and space age electronic equipment ran for 24 hours a day for over a year recording on magnetic tape the rays reaching the interior of the pyramid. The recordings were totally inconsistent and from the outraged scientists’ point of view, gibberish. In a letter to The Times of 14 July 1969, Dr Amir Golid, the scientist in charge, said the research had reached an impasse and stated that ‘there is some force that defies the laws of science at work in the pyramid’.

It is thought that the power of architectural form was also known in Europe. Louis Charpentier [10] is one of those who consider that some of the cathedrals (Charpentier is particularly interested in Chartres) express esoteric knowledge and that the proportions can have very strong effects on man.

Others have found that music too can be very powerful. Music can be soothing and stimulating by turns, but certain notes and harmonies can have specific effects. Some notes, for example, can keep you awake to the point of nervous collapse. Most people have heard that certain notes can shatter a glass. Specific notes can therefore be used to produce both emotional and physiological results and this is well known in the East where, even at its simplest, each chakra is considered to ‘resonate’ at a certain note. I am told that this knowledge of the power of sound was still known in the Middle Ages and was used with an effect that even we can dimly appreciate in the composition of Gregorian chant, aimed to stimulate the mystic and spiritual centres of man.

Dancing or exercise in various forms can help to balance the flow of energy through the body. Some disciplines (Eastern again) have developed a science of posture and movement where each skilled and precise stance or movement has a particular physical or non-physical purpose for the practitioner. Many of these disciplines are now available in the West. Yoga, the martial arts and many of their derivatives including T’ai Chi, if properly taught, can be seen to be of enormous mental and physical benefit.

Our culture partially recognises the effect that the loving and careful practice of an art or a skill can have, but we have no real inkling of the full importance of the complexities. Thus Music and Movement is taught as a subject in schools, and Occupational Therapy is provided in the medical field, but we still have a great deal to learn.

Nutrition

In a physical sense, we are what we eat [11]. Nutritionists of various convictions tell us that certain foods are carcinogens and they are probably right. Most people have heard that refined sugar and flour are thought to be extremely harmful in large quantities. The pesticides used on our crops can end up in your digestive systems, and many of the harmonisers, additives and chemical dyes can be damaging. It is not only the materials but the manufacturing process which can result in toxic effects. Technological progress is going so fast that monitoring standards are not keeping pace, and in many cases commercial interests are unfortunately at odds with consumer safety. Nonetheless, large numbers of people will happily survive on a supposedly unhealthy diet. Others can eat most things with impunity but will be found to be allergic to something normally considered innocuous such as wheat. While we can generalise by saying that numerous foods are potential trouble-makers, we also have to realise that one man’s meat is undoubtedly another man’s poison.

We do not pay nearly enough attention either to what we eat or to the many vital ingredients such as minerals which we fail to eat. The subject demands a great deal of attention and, unfortunately, I cannot do justice to it here. Nutritional good sense can be taught in general terms but, as in everything else, it is the individual reaction that matters most. A competent healer/dowser has an advantage here as he or she can immediately detect the foods to which the patient is allergic, without having to wait for the results of the conventional tests which can take several months to complete. It is worth remembering that psychological as well as physical discomfort and illness can result from eating the wrong things. To quote an extreme, it was discovered some years ago that agene, a product that was once used to bleach flour, could send laboratory research animals mad if fed to them in large quantities. It is always worth checking for dietary allergies in all disease, including non-physical disturbance, as once the allergy-producing factor has been isolated it is so easy to start the reverse process, and it can be very encouraging for someone suffering uncharacteristic depression to discover that the cause, or one of the causes, is a straightforward dietary one.

Those who find nutrition within their dowsing range will find it very useful in relation to their own health, if embarrassing on occasion to their hosts. I well remember one American lady who had attended a conference of the British Society of Dowsers. She and her husband stayed on after the conference and dined with the remaining members of the group at their hotel. She was allergic to shellfish. The menu included fish with some seemingly innocuous white wine sauce. She dowsed her plateful nevertheless, and reported that her sauce contained shellfish. The waiter was summoned and challenged. He replied soothingly and not a little patronisingly. The other guests gazed around the room in the manner of embarrassed Englishmen, but she stuck to her guns, and the waiter retired to confer with the chef, only to return full of apologies. Madam was quite right. The sauce on the menu had run out and the chef had made a supplementary one, this time adding shellfish. We returned to our fish, our American friend had steak and saved herself two days’ food poisoning.

Notes

1. Marino, Andrew and Becker, Robert. ‘Hazard at a Distance – Effects of Exposure to the Electric and Magnetic Fields of High Voltage Transmission Lines’. Medical Research Engineering Vol. 12, No. 5.
2. Battocletti, Joseph H. Electromagnetism, Man and the Environment. Elek Scientific Books, 1976.
3. Male, J. C. and Norris, W. T. Central Electricity Research Laboratories. Laboratory Note No. RD/L/N2/80, December 1980.
4. Marino, Andrew A. and Becker, Robert. ‘Biological Effects of Extremely Low Frequency Electric and Magnetic Fields – A Review’. Physiological Chemistry and Physics Vol. 9, No. 2, 1977.
5. Hildyard, N. ‘Overexposed’. The New Ecologist Vol. 9, No. 1, Jan/Feb 1979.
6. Devereux, Paul and Thomson, Ian. The Ley Hunter’s Companion. Thames and Hudson, 1980.
7. Graves, Tom. Dowsing: Techniques and Applications. Turnstone Press, 1976.
8. Gimbel, Theo. Healing Through Colour. C. W. Daniel, 1980.
9. Watson, Lyall. Supernature. Coronet, 1974.
10. Charpentier, Louis. The Mysteries of Chartres Cathedral. Research Into Lost Knowledge Organisation, 1972 (available from Thorsons).
11. This is a vast subject, but my wife Patricia, who is a much greater expert than myself, suggests that the following could form an introduction:
   Lappé, Frances Moore. Diet for a Small Planet. Ballantine Books, 1976.
   Rodale, J. I. and staff. Complete Book of Food and Nutrition. Rodale Books. 1961.
   Davis, Adelle. Let’s Get Well. Allen and Unwin, 1979. Westberg, Marita. Eat Well, Live Longer. Quartet Books, 1979.

Healing

A straightforward look into
all aspects of the healing phenomenon

Bruce MacManaway

HEALING 9 by Bruce MacManaway

Bruce MacManaway
Healing

Bruce MacManaway

9. The Discarnate World

It was in 1941 when I was temporarily back in Britain that I met Louisa Ashdown. She was a delightful, unpretentious woman with an unusual gift. She could sit in her drawing room chatting to her guests and simultaneously a voice, audible to everyone in the room, could be heard coming from a point anything up to ten feet away from her. While not denying the existence of ventriloquism, such a feat was totally impossible in the circumstances as the larynx cannot be used to produce two voices simultaneously. The evidence that I heard on numerous occasions was quite enough to convince me that the information imparted could not possibly be known to any of those present and the information was frequently expressed fluently in foreign languages of which Louisa Ashdown had no knowledge. One voice which addressed itself to me on many occasions showed a staggering knowledge of the French campaign in which I had recently been involved. I never discovered the identity of the speaker, but he was obviously a senior officer as he had far greater and wider knowledge of events than I could have from my lowly position of second lieutenant. His description of many critical situations in which I had been involved was graphic and detailed – and they were not subjects I had ever talked about except in the most general terms.

Until the end of 1942 and after the war I worked with a great many mediums or ‘sensitives’ as they are now known. In retrospect I realise how lucky I was to meet so many extraordinarily talented people. I could go on at length about the evidence that convinced me that survival after death is a reality regardless of one’s religious concepts, but I will tell only one more story. It was in Edinburgh in 1949 that a group of people, myself included, was asked by the Psychic College in Herriot Row to test Helen Duncan. She had recently completed a term in prison for alleged fraudulent mediumship and it was felt that if she was to take up her work again, an independent test should be carried out.

The female members of the group stripped and searched her and then sewed her into a one-piece suit with no pockets or apertures, which covered her from elbow to knee. We sat in a room with enough light to read the small print in a diary. I know because I checked! In the space of ninety minutes, seventeen separate forms came into the room. Many of them materialised sufficiently to be touched and we all heard the individual voices, both male and female, which came from different points of the room and could not possibly have come from the medium’s throat. This was evidence enough, but I was further surprised when one of the forms approached me. He thrust out two handless arms and said in Serbo-Croat, ‘You’ll remember that you buried me under the mimosa tree’. Nobody else in the room, far less Helen Duncan, knew any Serbo-Croat. I knew very little, but had picked up a smattering of the language and the dialects during the war when running a small sea-going unit, which included a number of Yugoslavs supplying military necessities to the Allied Forces in Yugoslavia. Certainly nobody else in the room with Helen Duncan could have known about the particular incident to which this related, but I remembered it well enough. Some Yugoslavs had been rescued and brought to Italy after some internal fighting and many of them had been severely mutilated. Some of them survived, but not by any means all and I remembered one who had had his hands brutally hacked off whom we buried under a mimosa tree.

The survival of death is a subject that Western man on the whole shies away from or denies hotly, even if he has not investigated the matter at all. Dr Johnson took a sensible view of the question; he remarked

that the dead are seen no more I will not undertake to maintain against the concurrent and varied testimonies of all ages and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which perhaps prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth: those that never heard of one another would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience could render credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers can very little weaken the general evidence; and some who deny it with their tongues confess it by their fears.

There is of course a great deal of well attested evidence for survival for anyone who does not wish to take my word for it. As an example, Eileen Garrett, one of Britain’s outstanding mediums with whom I shared many fascinating sessions, worked in America in the 1940s and submitted herself to rigorous tests under scientific conditions. The results of these tests were some of the factors that convinced many scientists that they should pay more attention to parapsychology, a subject that is now accepted at a number of universities in the United States. The evidence for Eileen Garrett’s abilities and those of numerous other gifted individuals is available through the libraries of the Society for Psychic Research and the College of Psychic Studies. More recently, doctors began to study patients who had clinically ‘died’ and then been resuscitated. Their conclusions were that consciousness seemed to continue after death. [1]

Teaching and Help from the Discarnate

I have not brought up the subject of the survival of death purely for its own sake. All the phenomena associated with mediumship is interesting and of value in that it alerts us to the reality of the Christian message of life after death. The main point, however, is that we can obtain enormous help from the discarnate (who include not just the so-called dead but other beings who may never have been incarnate), and I cannot stress too strongly that I feel it is both stupid and ungrateful to ignore it. It is equally stupid, of course, to suspend our critical faculties when communicating in this as in any field. I can only say that I (and I am not alone) am immensely grateful for the help and advice I have received over the years. This has included advice on my own health and a tremendous amount of information on how to help others. It sometimes takes the form of detailed diagnosis of individual patients or selection of remedies or suggestions of other possible sources of help.

Healing has been known in all parts of the world throughout the ages, and in every era many practitioners have given credit to some ‘spiritual’ source of help. This is true of the ancient Chinese, Egyptians and Greeks, of the Indian traditions, of Shamanism [2] as it was (and in some cases still is) practised in parts of Africa, Asia, Australia and the Americas. It is true of a great number, though not all, of the healers in the Western world. The difficulty lies in the definition of ‘spiritual’. Do we mean that we can receive help from some greater spiritual or divine order with an inherent value system, or do we mean help from ‘spirits’, including the dead? I maintain that both are possible but Western cultures find it particularly difficult to accept the latter. Thus, healers who claim that they have spiritual ‘guides’ are often regarded as a little strange. Others claim that they are channels for divine assistance or that they recognise a ‘life force’ and give it different names such as prana or mana and attribute slightly different characteristics to it. The internal controversies can be bitter, but perhaps it is at least a start if man recognises an unknown factor. Leaving aside for the moment any considerations of a greater spiritual order, I maintain that part of the so-called spiritual world is already within our grasp and demonstrably part of our lives.

Summary of Objections

There are many who will say that any notion of contact with a spiritual or discarnate world is unscientific and therefore impossible. From my point of view, spiritual help is an enormous asset, but I must stress again that extended sensory perception, including healing, works regardless of any belief or lack of it and, as experiments show, would seem to be subject to ‘natural’, if as yet incompletely understood laws. Do we perhaps dub ‘supernatural’ that which is in fact ‘natural’? At any rate, many rational Westerners study or even practise healing without any reference to spiritual or discarnate elements.

I know that many people would like to think that contact with the discarnate world is impossible nonsense because if it is not, all sorts of alarming spectres arise. ‘Messing about with spirits’, many say, is either dangerous or wrong or both. While I admit that dealing with the discarnate has its dangers, I cannot accept that it is ipso facto wrong. To say that communication with the discarnate and spiritual worlds is always morally wrong because sometimes it can be dangerous and sometimes it is misleading is illogical. It would seem to me that because there are dangers we must learn more about it so that we can discriminate, sifting the valuable and the helpful from the destructive and misleading and, of course, the fraudulent.

Many of those in the West who say that contact with a spiritual world is wrong base their arguments on the teachings of the Christian church. The church’s arguments are many and varied but broadly speaking they can be summarised as variations on two themes.

Firstly, they would claim that any genuine as opposed to fraudulent spiritual communication that does not come directly from God must be or is probably from the Devil. I submit, for reasons which I will put forward in a moment, that this judgement was reached for practical and political rather than ethical considerations. Secondly, they claim that whether the level of information imparted from supposedly spiritual sources is valued as good, bad or indifferent, the very excitement of communicating with discarnate sources can distract man from his proper task of aspiring to follow the Divine Will. There is some truth in both arguments in that the spiritual level or value of mediumistic information is immensely variable. A great deal of popular interest in seances is purely sensational and, instead of regarding contact with a spiritual world with reverence and a genuine desire to attain understanding and wisdom, some mediumistic contact can be debased to mere ‘spirit bothering’.

The assessment of the value of any communication is of paramount importance. The question is surely that of authority. Who is going to be the judge and controller? Should any organisation have a permanent monopoly and a blanket power of veto? This issue is not limited to Christianity. It is a universal problem, similar to that of parents throughout the world who have to consider when, if ever, they should allow their children to make their own judgements.

The Christian Background to Contact with Spirits

If you look up St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, you will find an excellent dissertation in chapters twelve to fourteen on the various aspects of extended sensory perception, including mediumship, which Paul called the gifts of the spirit. He encouraged his listeners to practise these gifts. He made the vital point (first letter to the Thessalonians, Chapter 5) that we should test the spirits and sometimes reject them as in the case quoted in the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 16. He never said ignore them. St John’s first general epistle also makes the assumption that we will contact spirits through prophets or mediums and tells us not to believe every spirit, but to try them to see whether they are of God. Mediumship through the so-called oracles or prophets played a regular part in the early church, notably in the Church at Corinth founded by St Paul. The first great Latin father of the church, Tertullian, who lived in Carthage (circa 155-225) gave a fascinating description of mediumship in his essay ‘On the Soul’.3

We have amongst us a sister whose lot it has been to be favoured with gifts of revelation, which she experiences in the Spirit by ecstatic vision amongst the sacred rites of the Lord’s Day in the Church; she converses with angels and sometimes even with the Lord; she both sees and hears mysterious communications; some men’s hearts she discerns and she obtains directions for healing for such as need them… After the people are dismissed at the conclusion of the sacred services, she is in the regular habit of reporting to us whatever things she may have seen in vision; for all her communications are examined with the most scrupulous care, in order that their truth may be probed. ‘Amongst other things’ she says, ‘there was shown to me a soul in bodily shape and a spirit appeared to me; not, however, a void and empty illusion, but such as would offer itself to be even grasped by the hand, clear and transparent and of an ethereal colour, and in form resembling that of a human being in every respect’. This was her vision and for her witness there was God, and the apostle is a fitting surety that there were to be Spiritual Gifts in the church.

Here we have spiritual help with healing, direct contact with God, with a hierarchy of spiritual beings (angels?) and with other souls or spirits.

It is of particular interest that the early church had no objection to the ‘oracles’ contacting intermediary spirits rather than demanding direct communication with God Himself all the time. If we accept a hierarchy, including the communion of saints, contact need not be with God Himself. It is of course vital to keep all our powers of judgement on the alert, but I find it very sad that for so many centuries we have been led to believe that if any communication does not come straight from God, it must automatically be from the Devil. The acceptance of a hierarchy of beings including ‘dead’ human beings (the communion of saints?) has to me always made perfect sense. As a soldier I frequently had to accept an order from a senior officer, even if it was delivered by a junior. I did not demand to see Montgomery himself before I carried them out, although on many occasions I would require specific corroboration before taking action. In the same way, we are encouraged in the New Testament to test any would-be spiritual guide by demanding proof of authenticity and motive. As in the case quoted by Tertullian the communications must be examined with most scrupulous care.

If mediumship was a valued part of the early church, why is it in such ill repute with the authorities today? if we are to test the spirits (but not ignore them) and see they be of God, then surely the men of God should be able to help and guide us in the matter. The established churches, however, are very unhappy about spiritualism. They are of course correct in assuming that if there are ‘good’ spirits there are probably also ‘bad’ ones, but they seem to have used this as the reason for pushing the whole subject under the carpet and banning it if possible. The basis of this probably lies once more in the politics of early church history.

The scholars dispute whether the passage in Tertullian concerning the medium refers to a Catholic or a Montanist service. The Montanists, as you may remember, were a group of Christians in Phrygia noted for their healers and what we would now call mediums, particularly Montanus himself and two women called Prisca and Maximillia. Their influence spread far afield and impressed many of the leading Christians, including Tertullian himself. The fact that there is a dispute about whether this service was influenced by Montanism or not implies that other churches, too, had their mediums; this is confirmed by the frequent references to ‘oracles’ or ‘prophets’ in the various Church Orders, of which the Didache, already quoted, is the first known example. The church, while accepting both healers and oracles, made it quite clear that the spirits had to be evaluated to see if they were ‘of God’, if it was satisfactorily ascertained that this was the case, the oracles were much revered. The Montanists were therefore not really out of step, except in that the leaders were obtaining considerable influence which was a threat to the other arm of authority, the priesthood. Tertullian claims that the Bishop of Rome had already sent letters aimed at placating the troubles in Phrygia and recognising the Montanists as orthodox, but at the persuasion of Praxeus and his lobby these letters were recalled. Having been within an inch of acceptance, the Montanists were then branded as heretics and excommunicated.

The priesthood over the ensuing years managed to gain the ascendance and in time were left unchallenged. The ‘oracles of God’ disappeared and any lay person demonstrating their gifts was promptly stigmatised as a servant of the Devil. Tertullian could well
say of Praxeus that ‘He drove out prophecy and brought in heresy and he put the Comforter to flight’. It seems that Montanus did become something of a spiritual megalomaniac, but the baby was thrown out with the bath water, so to speak, when disapproval of Montanus led to a ban on prophecy or mediumship.

The churches have cut themselves off from regular contact with the spiritual world through lay mediums ever since. It was not until the nineteenth century when the spiritualist movement started that the subject was opened up once more. The church authorities found themselves in a position equivalent to that of a government which, for many generations, has successfully upheld prohibition. When certain of the population rediscover alcohol, there is no one who fully under stands its effects on man or who can discriminate between the respective values of crude alcohol and vintage claret. If the ban on alcohol is lifted, many of the least wise may become addicted to the cheapest and most damaging forms of neat alcohol, and this seems to corroborate the wisdom of prohibition. If, however, an essential part of the government’s ancient constitution can be shown to advocate the discriminating use of alcohol, then the government must surely try to rediscover the old skills of production and help to guide the population towards a wise appreciation of them – while pointing out the dangers of licentious use of some undoubtedly damaging forms of drink.

The church’s attitude is in many ways understandable but unfortunate in that is has cut us off from so much help. The Catholics regard the whole subject of contact with the ‘realm of shades’ as too dangerous for the lay population, though opinion on diabolic influence varies amongst the authoritative writers and there are some who think communication with spirits useful. [4] The Protestant churches on the whole find it more difficult than the Catholics even to accept the possibility of communication. Archbishop Lang and Archbishop Temple appointed a committee to investigate spiritualism in 1937. The committee took over two years to prepare their report and in fact did not come to a unanimous conclusion. The majority report was signed by seven out of the ten members. The House of Bishops then pigeon-holed the report for some nine years, when somehow or other it was leaked to the press. The conclusions reached by a Church of England Committee of course cannot be representative of the views of all its own authorities, far less those of any other church, but it is so well expressed that it is worth quoting.

The seven signatories of the Majority Report [5] came to the conclusion that:

…certain outstanding psychic experiences of individuals, including certain experiences with mediums, make a strong prima facie case for survival and for the possibility of spirit communications while philosophical, ethical and religious considerations may be held to weigh heavily on the same side.

They thought that ‘it is probable that the hypotheses that they (communications through mediums) proceed in some cases from discarnate spirits is the true one’. They concluded that ‘in general we need much more freedom in our recognition of the living unity of the whole church, in this world and in that which lies beyond death’ and that spiritualism, if used with care and due recognition of the pitfalls, can fill up ‘the gaps in our knowledge so that where we already walked by faith, we may now have some measure of sight as well’.

As the report states, it is more than worrying if people allow ‘an interest in spiritualism, at a low level of spiritual value, to replace that deeper religion which rests fundamentally upon the right relation of the soul to God himself’. On the other hand, the report admits that ‘if spiritualism does, in fact, make such an appeal to some, it is at least in part because the church has not proclaimed and practised its faith with sufficient conviction’. In addition, they make it clear that the recognition of discarnate concern for us ‘cannot do otherwise… than add a new immediacy and richness to (our)belief in the Communion of Saints’. They add that ‘There seems to be no reason at all why the Church should regard this vital and personal enrichment of one of her central doctrines with disfavour’, so long as it does not distract Christians from their contact with God.

The report therefore regards spiritualism as both real and useful but the signatories make the vital point that we (and in this they include the lay population as well as the authorities) must use our powers of spiritual apprehension as fully and honestly as possible.

It is true [the report admits] that there are quite clear parallels between the miraculous events recorded in the Gospels and modern phenomena attested by spiritualists. And if we assert that the latter must be doubted because they have not yet proved capable of scientific statement and verification, we must add that the miracles, and the Resurrection itself, are not capable of such verification either.

The report goes on to say that Christians accept the Gospels not because of the wonders but because they… ‘ring true to the deepest powers of spiritual apprehension. But if this is so, we must clearly apply the same criteria to the claims of spiritualists’ (my italics). In other words, we can have ‘deep powers of spiritual apprehension’ and these, together with our intellectual powers of reason, must be rigorously applied when dealing with mediumistic communications.

The Dangers: Spirits and Mediums Good and Bad

The report stresses the dangers and the possibilities for distortion and delusion. Just being dead is not going to make anyone particularly different, so I quite agree that there are going to be those who are malicious or downright destructive as well as the wise, kindly, stupid and indifferent. We are quite accustomed to this in our normal lives. The odd politician, accountant, doctor, lawyer, and cleric has been discovered to be a crook but that does not mean that we ban politics, accountancy, the medical or legal professions and the clergy. We have to use our discrimination and, when necessary, ask for references. On every occasion I have found that those discarnate beings who make it their business to assist are prepared to take a great deal of time and trouble to establish their authenticity by, for example, showing a knowledge of intensely personal matters and I think this ‘testing’ is extremely important. Above all, we have to use our spiritual and moral understanding before committing ourselves.

As with the dead, so with the living. There are many brilliant mediums, but I am the first to admit that this whole field (like healing) is particularly open to abuse and fraudulence. This highlights the need for finding out more about it so that we can distinguish the good from the bad. Even the very best medium will of course have an ‘off day’. Some of the most celebrated violinists occasionally play flat! And even in a trance state, it is frequently difficult for the medium to withdraw his or her personality sufficiently and this may inadvertently colour the message.

Do-It-Yourself Mediumship

It has been marvellous to have had the chance to experience the gifts of so many brilliant mediums. We can, however, if we are lucky, do the job to a certain extent for ourselves. If you like, it is similar to installing one’s own telephone at home rather than going to the post office every time one wants to make a call. The telephone may not always work to order and it is possible to get a faulty line – and this can be true whether at home or in the post office.

I first discovered that my own capacity for direct mediumship was a reality when I was asked to give a talk to a large audience in Edinburgh in 1949. I was to share a platform with Helen Hughes, a famous medium, and had, with considerable trepidation, prepared a speech at short notice as I was merely a substitute for a very eminent speaker who had fallen ill. Subsequently I was told by Helen Hughes and three other clairvoyants in the audience that they had ‘seen’ a discarnate being step onto the platform with me. He had allowed me to start my talk and then stepped forward and placed a hand between my shoulder blades, whereupon I folded my notes, spoke for the allotted 45 minutes and sat down. The talk was well received but it bore no relation to my carefully prepared script! This has happened to me so frequently since that I can no longer be surprised, though I sometimes listen with interest to tape recordings of what I have said as I hear myself talking about matters that I did not think I knew. This can leave me at a loss when asked to authenticate my statements!

Sometimes I realise that I am ‘off beam’ and have to make corrections. One learns to recognise this with practice. If we go back to the analogy of the telephone, crossed or faulty lines are an occupational hazard of communicating. So do not assume that by dialling the White House, your information comes straight from the President; you may have got a crossed line to a small boy in Birmingham. Let him supply evidence of who he is, and keep your powers of judgement sharp for evaluating the worth of the information. In the last resort we have free will, and it is perfectly possible to ignore instructions if they seem likely to cause more harm than good.

Out of the Body Activity

Incidentally, we are all quite capable of operating without our bodies whether we are alive or dead. Louisa Ashdown was extremely perturbed when she ‘saw’ and spoke to me in London in 1943 even though I was physically many hundreds of miles away. She put down what I told her in her diary and, knowing that in reality I was fighting in North Africa, she wondered whether she should tell my mother I was dead. Luckily, she didn’t. When I returned to England, she showed me her diary. There was my account of a small but particularly unpleasant incident in Tunisia, in which I had once again very nearly been killed – but not quite!

There was a small girl in Perthshire whom I knew purely on account of my spare-time hobby which was teaching show jumping to members of the Pony Club. She fell ill and as she was not responding to treatment, her mother (whom I did not really know at all) rang up a mutual friend to see if I would be prepared to help. Unfortunately, I was away and could not be contacted. The friend, having talked to me about telepathy in the past, endeavoured to send me a telepathic message stressing the severity of the child’s illness. The rest of the story came from the child. She was sitting up in bed the next morning, her fever symptoms gone and loudly demanding breakfast. Her mother expressed surprise and delight. ‘Don’t be silly, mummy’, came the response. ‘You know that the man from the Pony Club, Major MacManaway, came to see me last night.’ Her mother looked blank. ‘Yes, he held his hands over my tummy and it was very hot and then he told me I’d be all right in the morning. And I am.’

Whether you call it astral travel or any other high-sounding name, this ability has been known in many parts of the world for centuries. Brian Inglis, in his book Natural and Supernatural [6] quotes many stories of confounded European travellers who found that the wise men in parts of Africa and elsewhere could slip into a trance and ‘go’ many miles and back in a night, bringing with them physical evidence and subsequently corroborated news as proof of their journey.

We really are more than just physical beings. We can operate without our bodies and we can do our best to help or hinder mankind, whether we are alive or dead.

Bibliography

1. Moody, Raymond. Life After Life. Corgi, 1977.
2. Halifax, Joan. Shamanic Voices. Penguin, 1980.
3. Tertullian, ‘De Anima 9’. Ante-Nicene Christian Library quoted in A New Eusebius. Documents illustrative of the History of the Church to AD 337. SPCK, 1957.
4. For a selection of both sides of the Catholic argument, see the following:
Crehan, Joseph. Spiritualism. The Incorporated Catholic Truth Society, 1979.
Gatterer, Fr. Alois. ‘Der Wissenschaftliche Okkultismus’ 1927. Roure, L. ‘L’Eglise Catholique et le Spiritisme’ in essay on ‘Spiritsme’ in Dic. Theol. Cath. XIV 15-7-2522, 1940.
5. The Church of England and Spiritualism. Psychic Press (no date).
6. Inglis, Brian. Natural and Supernatural. Hodder and Stoughton, 1978.